


shameful company

by reversetheuniverse



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst, F/M, also an au if maya moved after eighth grade, and things went wrong, but they turn out good in the end, like i went really angsty with this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 02:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9101860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reversetheuniverse/pseuds/reversetheuniverse
Summary: “If you're cold, go inside, if you're tired, go to sleep, if you're weak, come to me, and find shameful company.”//They haven't talked in years. But their eyes meet one another's and they're connected, just like they've always been.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is a super angsty fic. I know it may /seem/ a little ooc, but trust me, it's good. Basically, it's if things went really wrong. Not super dark or anything, but the angst is ever present as it always is with me :)
> 
> The title is based off of a song called "Shameful Company" by Rainbow Kitten Surprise (don't let the band name fool you; they're along the lines of indie rock and they formed right at my college i go to :) .)
> 
> Give the song a listen! --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUoO_ETPSSM
> 
> [*also as a short note, it's got a little bit of sexual themes woven into it, not anything super explicit hence the rating, but if you don't like to read anything like that then I would encourage you to maybe stay away from this fic, if you prefer.]

 

It starts when they pass each other in the empty gym, a seemingly innocent interaction.

Riley hasn’t talked to Farkle Minkus in the longest time. She can’t recall the last conversation they held, can’t remember the exact moment when their infinite friendship turned finite. It was always something that she knew bothered the both of them, but not enough to do something about it.

She’s Riley Matthews, cheerleader, class president, and at the top of the social hierarchy. He’s Farkle Minkus—respected by many, but friends with few. A genius at the head of the mathematics club that meets weekly and competes every Saturday and possible school valedictorian.

So why is he in the gym? Why would he ever bother coming into the gym in the first place? As she remembers, he was never one for sports, and she can certainly tell that hasn’t changed.

Another question she has is for herself, and herself only—why is she so intrigued by the fact that Farkle is near her? She’s never felt anything but a touch of sadness when she looks at him, a hint of a memory of a friendship that could’ve endured a life time. It doesn’t keep her awake at night, though.

For the first time in a long time, they exchange words. They say their hellos and manage small talk, and then Riley loses track of what happens after she asks him what he’s doing in the gym in the first place.

The talking certainly stops, and somewhere inbetween she’s pushed him behind the bleachers, her skirt hiked up and his hands pressed to her thighs, stroking them tenderly, lovingly. She mewls when he hits a particularly sensitive area, and he lets out a soft moan when her teeth meet the crook of his neck and her palms the front of his pants.

They part without another word between each other once they’ve finished, no mention of what had just transpired between the two of them.

Silence has always seemed to work better for them these days, anyway.

 

//

 

Riley’s not some cheap floozy who screws boys under the gym bleachers for kicks. And it’s not like she was even that _needy_ , it just sort of . . . happened.

The whole situation is new territory for her, and she doesn’t know how to handle it.

She couldn’t tell Missy at all—Missy would sooner ostracize her than give her solace for going to third base with Farkle Minkus.

It’s not like she has Maya to talk to anymore.

She does deal with it, eventually, just not in the way she imagined. Not in a very classy way, either.

Riley makes eye contact with Farkle in the hallway, and the next thing she knows, she’s in the janitor’s closet, a chair propped up at the door and the buttons of her blouse popped open as he pays her chest much heed.

God, what incited this dumb change where they went from best-friends-turned-strangers-turned-heavy-petting-partners? He doesn’t even have any reason to give her this sort of attention. As far as she’s concerned, he should hate her for ditching him. He should be pissed that she exists, that she gave up on him long ago, left him to his own devices.

But he’s not.

She knows he wants to be here with her (he pulled her into the janitor’s closet himself this time), and when their eyes meet, if only for a brief second, she can see that hint of admiration he held for her before, even more concentrated now.

It’s not pity. It’s not something that stemmed from hate. It’s . . . different. She doesn’t know what it is, but she does know one thing.

She doesn’t want it to stop. That frightens the _hell_ out of her.

 

//

 

Riley does a good job of avoiding Farkle for two whole weeks.

She gets back together with Lucas—her on again/off again boyfriend since the ninth grade. She figures it’ll keep her from wanting to get back into Farkle’s pants, but quickly discovers after making out with Lucas that there isn’t a simple solution to her situation.

It’s much more complicated than she led herself to believe.

And after two weeks of no Farkle and then Lucas breaking up with her (his ninth time? She’s lost track of the tally marks on both ends), she finds herself in an empty classroom after school, the door locked and Farkle pressing her to the desk gently, with care.

What did she do to deserve such kind treatment from him? Nothing, is the answer.

But when Farkle’s tongue pushes into her mouth and meets hers with fervor, she can’t say she has it in her to care at all.

 

//

 

Riley really thinks she’s lost it when she sits with him at lunch one day.

She doesn’t feel like she needs to explain herself to her “friends”; they can speculate whatever they want. She just wants to know if it would really feel nice to sit with him and just _talk_ , because regardless of whatever relationship they have, she believes it should be an amicable one. At least, it should outside the “bedroom”.

“Hey, Farkle,” she greets him. His eyes are wide and full of surprise when she speaks, tearing them away from the huge physics textbook laid out in front of him next to his school lunch.

“ _What are you doing here?_ ” he whispers harshly. Riley furrows her brow, because something so trivial as where she sits for lunch shouldn’t warrant such a tone from him.

“I thought I’d sit with you and just _talk_ , Farkle. Remember, we haven’t done that in a long while. Wouldn’t it be nice to just try to be friends?” The expression on his face says differently.

“Riley,” he responds in a low tone, “I don’t think it’s a good idea. We don’t exist out here.” He gestures over to the table behind her where two tables full of cheerleaders are just _staring_ at them.

“Fuck them all, Farkle. Who cares what they think?” she asks. He makes a face that answers her question as quick as it appeared.

_He_ cares.

“Alright, fine. I guess I’ll see you around, Minkus.” Riley leaves him alone at the table, dumping her lunch into a nearby trashcan and exiting the cafeteria.

She shouldn’t be as bent out of shape over this as she is, but she suddenly realizes why they didn’t remain friends.

Farkle didn’t want to.

She’s just fine with that.

 

//

 

Riley’s not upset. She’s back with Lucas ( _“Again?!”_ Missy pointed out, to which Riley promptly flipped her the middle finger) and they’re actually trying to make their relationship work.

She hasn’t caught sight of Farkle Minkus anywhere, and she doesn’t think she will again. And maybe it’s better that way. Maybe it’s better that they cut their ties while they’re not in too deep in whatever they call this “thing” they’ve created.

That’s what she’s trying to convince herself, in the very least.

Lucas is good. He loves her despite their tendency to break up almost every week, and she knows he’ll always be there for her. He’s her infinite person, and that’s what she wants most in life. Riley just wants people to stick around for the long haul. Is that too much to ask?

But she’s always had her head in the clouds, always wanted things that were out of her reach.

Farkle makes it to homecoming—she spots him immediately, wearing the sweater with the elbow patches on it that he always liked to wear on frigid nights when she knew him once upon a time. And she knows she’s with Lucas and they promised that they’d actually try a relationship this time (they always say that), but when the game is over and everyone has disappeared from the bleachers besides her and him, they meet each other in the locker room and explore each other in the dark.

Is she a bad person? Riley doesn’t like to think she is, but she’s definitely changed from who she was three years ago, right when Maya moved away. She thinks to herself that Maya certainly wouldn’t approve of her behavior despite being fairly reckless herself, but Maya’s not here.

Riley makes her own decisions, suffers her own consequences.

Farkle’s fingers map out the expanse of her body, and it’s enough to distract her from her own thoughts for the night.

 

//

 

Lucas breaks up with her for real this time. Neither of them are really disappointed, but Lucas is down enough about it to point out that he’s smelled someone else’s cologne drenching her shirts and sweaters lately, and she makes no move to correct him. He’s right, after all.

Riley does get pretty hung up over the break up, though. She’s not quite sure how to live her life without her identity as “Riley Matthews the cheerleader dating head quarterback Lucas Friar”. And yeah, they hadn’t been working for a long while coming now, but he’s still been the last three years of her life, and she doesn’t know how to get through it.

She asks Missy for advice. Missy asks her if it’s against the “girl code” to go after him. Riley hangs up and deletes Missy’s number from her phone.

She stays after school in the library during the time she would spend with Lucas, studying her ass off for exams that are weeks out. Anything to keep her mind preoccupied and to prevent her thoughts from drifting.

She definitely doesn’t forget the possibility of Farkle Minkus being there, too.

She’d also be lying if she said she hadn’t developed an inkling of feelings for him.

Yeah, most of their interactions have been sexually charged liked a vibrator filled with Energizer batteries, and their twelve-year-old selves would probably vomit if they knew what was happening, but that wasn’t all there was to their behind-closed-doors relationship.

In the moments when they were coming down from their highs, they’d talk. Farkle would tell her that he’d had a test that day or that he was really stressed because another mathematics club competition was coming up and he wasn’t sure he was fully prepared for it. Riley would mention that she had events for the school to plan on top of her AP Literature book she was behind on annotating, and then they’d sit there and watch each other.

Sometimes he’d even brush a few strands away from her face and trace the curve of her lips with his thumb. She’d find a stray eyelash on his face and hold it up for him to make a wish, and when her hand would reach back up to his cheek, he’d lean into her touch ever so slightly.

Most times, their actions spoke much louder than words ever could.

So her grand gesture is to wait for him in an empty library, hoping he’ll show up so that the two of them can just talk. Like clockwork, he appears in the door frame, his vibrant blue eyes catching sight of her almost immediately. His feet make long strides toward her, his expression not giving anything else away. He greets her, soft-spoken like he usually is, a hint of a smile gracing his lips.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Serenity is a good look on him, she decides.

Farkle takes the seat across from Riley, and for once she doesn’t feel the weight of the world on her shoulders. She and him can just be Farkle and Riley, Riley and Farkle, and they don’t have to worry about anyone else telling them what to do with their lives. He asks her how her day was, inquires about her many extracurricular activities and if she ever finished reading that book for class. She asks him if his competition went well and what grade he got on his test.

It’s natural, almost comforting to be sort-of-friends with Farkle again. He was always her rock when they were best friends, someone she could lean on when her life was falling to absolute shit. She never found anyone who could replace Farkle Minkus, and that fact never surprised her.

He’s one of a kind, and it hurts to know that she ever let him go.

They know how to make up for lost time, though, in their own sort of cathartic ritual. They make their way to the projection room and put on a movie, mostly just for background noise. She initiates contact first, though, pulling herself on top of his lap to straddle him and tracing the line of his jaw with chaste kisses.

It’s become so easy for their bodies to move together in perfect synchronization, and Riley wonders to herself if it was always Farkle Minkus. Farkle Minkus, the boy who knew her like no other, was there for her in every and any capacity, her stagnant stone. Was it always supposed to be her with him, and she just never knew? Was she desperately trying to rebuff someone who made her truly happy because long ago she developed a propensity for pushing people away?

Then revelation hits her like a freight train—she’s in love with Farkle Minkus.

“Farkle,” she breathes between each pause of a kiss, her lips numbing from the gentle caress of his teeth, “ _I love you_.”

And he pauses. He freezes. He becomes the stone she’s always compared him to, but not in a good way.

“W-what?” he asks, eyes wide and a visible frown on his face.

“I said, I _love_ you, Farkle Minkus,” she reiterates for him, unable to process the words coming out of her own mouth.

“Riley—” he starts to respond, but the sound of the projection room door swinging open distracts him, and when she turns her head, she sees a group of people from the mathematics team, and the flash of the camera goes off.

“Congrats, Minkus! Can’t believe you pulled it off, buddy,” one of them pipes up, a grin plastered upon his face. Riley’s speechless for a moment, but then suddenly she understands

 

_e v e r y t h i n g_.

 

“You didn’t want to be with me, did you, Farkle,” she _says_ , not asks, because she knows his exact motivations, why he was in the gym that day when he had no business being there in the first place.

“Riley, it’s not like that,” he attempts to explain, but she’s not having any of that. There’s a reason why Farkle and her weren’t friends outside of the many closets and empty rooms they stuffed themselves into.

He was just playing her.

“I know _exactly_ what it’s like, Farkle,” she sneers, pushing away from him and getting to her feet. She meets the mass of nerds at the door and gives them a look before pushing through them, exiting the library with tears stinging her eyes.

That’s all she is to anyone anymore—a pawn they can use for their own personal gains.

 

//

 

Riley’s not surprised when she shows up to school the next day with a picture of her in a compromising position plastered wall to wall.

She knows they’ll all be taken down soon—there’s no way the principle will _not_ go batshit insane over the situation—and besides. What does it matter to her, anyway? It’s not like she has anything left to lose.

As she suspects, the pictures are taken down within the hour they were put up, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist elsewhere (social media is a cruel bitch, after all.) Riley eats lunch in her car in the school parking lot so that she doesn’t have to receive any more crap from the cheerleaders (her so called “friends”, but not really.)

She doesn’t see Farkle anywhere the whole day, and frankly, she’s alright with that.

Why would she want to see him, after he broke her heart and ruined her reputation? She doesn’t even care that she’s not popular anymore, that doesn’t bother her. All she cares is that she’s being treated like the school slut, a term she already doesn’t like because of its rude connotation against women having sex in general, when all she’s done is nothing more than what everyone else in high school is doing.

It’s a double standard, really. They’re all hypocrites, but that doesn’t surprise her in the least bit.

When the day is done and she can finally return home and just lie down in silence on her bed and pretend that she’s okay, she finally does run into Farkle, much to her chagrin. He looks worried as can be, his face seemingly apologetic, but she doesn’t care.

Riley doesn’t associate with people who hurt her. That’s her number one rule.

“C’mon, Riley. Let’s just _talk_ ,” Farkle pleads when he meets her at the car in the almost-deserted parking lot. She shakes her head. If she talks to him, he’ll find a way to have her forgive him, and if she forgives him, then she’s just giving him permission to do what he did to her again.

“Forget it, Farkle. You had your chance to ‘just talk’ with me. You got what you wanted; now why don’t you just leave me alone?” Riley can feel her eyes start to burn, and she’s not about to let Farkle see her cry. Another rule she has—don’t let the people who hurt you know that they hurt you. Then they’ll know that they have power over you.

“Because, Riley,” he says, catching her car door before she has the chance to close it, “I never meant to hurt you. I was going to tell you last night what was up, but then those idiots came in and ruined it.”

“But you started this. You did what they told you to in the first place,” she says inanely, her eyes narrowing at him. He thins his lips, not denying her accusations.

She figured as much.

“Look, I know my way around a computer. I can delete all those pictures—”

“Farkle, it’s _over_. Do what you want, but I don’t want to bother with someone who broke the trust I placed in them,” Riley cuts him off, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

_Shit_. There goes rule number two, right down the drain.

“ _Riley_ ,” he presses, taking a step towards her to wipe the tears from her face. She shies away from his touch. He drops his hand dejectedly, but his sea-gray eyes remain planted on her, begging, _pleading_. “I love you.”

“ _Farkle,_ ” Riley whispers his name, barely able to let it escape her lips, “I need to go.”

And he lets her. He stops fighting, and Riley closes the door to her car, strapping in and putting the key in the ignition. Farkle remains rooted in his spot as she pulls out of the now-vacant lot, straining to keep herself together.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

 

//

 

Life sucks. That’s a general rule. Life sucks even more when some dumb boy breaks your heart and then exposes you to the entirety of the school.

If Riley had the choice, she would totally stay in bed for the rest of her life. There’s no real reason for her to leave the comforts and confines of her own room, so why should she?

But life has other plans for her, brings her a westerly wind of change that throws her a total curveball.

For the first time in four years, she hears her bay window slide open from the other side, and when she turns to see if she needs to find the nearest weapon or what, she almost cries instead. Scratch that—not almost.

She fucking _bawls_ like a baby, because Maya Hart, her long lost best-friend, the prodigal girl herself, is standing in her bedroom.

“Hey, Riles,” she greets sweetly like a day between them hasn’t been lost, like _years_ between them haven’t been lost, and Riley can’t help but engulf her in a tight embrace.

“ _Peaches_ ,” Riley sobs into her shoulder, squeezing her tight, but not enough to stunt her breathing. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“You missed lil ol’ me? Aw, shucks,” Maya goofs around, but Riley knows she’s not being mean. She’s just being Maya, _her_ Maya, her kindred spirit.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” Riley manages a moment later after plenty of tears have been shed, wiping the back of her palm against her eyes furiously.

“A little bird told me that you might need some cheering up. So I hopped on the first plane I could get on to New York and climbed up your fire escape like I used to. God, it’s been too long,” Maya tells her.

“Too long indeed,” Riley agrees, but then registers completely what Maya had said and backtracks. “Wait, who was this ‘little bird’?” Maya offers her a sad smile, a crease forming inbetween her brows.

“Isn’t obvious?” Of course it’s obvious, but Riley doesn’t want to allow him the satisfaction of knowing this is probably the best gift someone’s ever given her. Hell, she doesn’t even want to associate with him. “You know, he really does love you,” Maya adds.

“Sure he does,” Riley says flatly, not meeting Maya’s hardening gaze.

“Riley, I may not have been here to see all the shit that’s gone down, but I know you two. You might’ve changed your appearances and personalities, but I can still recognize who you really are. He may be a genius, but he’s shit at love. But if there’s one thing he’s ever had figured out, it’s that he’s in love with you.”

“Yeah, well it’s too late now. He made his choice. He made it from the very beginning, and I don’t like to be toyed with. I’m no man’s doll.”

“No, you’re not,” Maya concurs, “But you might want to hear what this dorkus has to say. I’m not saying forgive him, _god_ don’t do that if you don’t want to, but hear him out.”

She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t give Farkle Minkus a minute of her time, let alone the time of day, but she still has a stupid gravitational pull towards him like she always has.

He’s one lucky sonofabitch, that Farkle Minkus is.

 

//

 

Riley and Farkle always had a knack at finding each other, even when they weren’t looking for one another in the first place.

They pass each other like strangers at first, by pure happenstance on the sidewalks of New York City, and then she’s rooted in place for a good minute.

She’s afraid. She’s afraid she’ll take a chance on him, only to have him crush her heart again. She’s _terrified_ that she’ll give him her heart and he’ll take care of it, only to later have him leave her like all her friends have, most importantly Maya.

That’s a heavy burden to carry—a decision that could produce any number of outcomes she can’t even begin to predict.

But then Riley remembers that the world is all about taking risks, learning from the mistakes you make daily. And who knows? Maybe it’ll hurt her, or maybe she’ll find exactly what she’s been looking for all along.

She can’t live her life on maybes.

Riley turns on her heel quickly, facing the boy who’s been a part of her from the very beginning. She sticks her hand out toward him, a smile forming on her face, warm and genuine—something she’s mustered from deep within, something she had buried long ago but is destined to resurface.

“Riley Matthews,” she introduces herself to him. Farkle takes a moment to catch up, but then takes her hand in his, shaking it firmly, grinning ear-to-ear. She takes note of his eyes, bluer than the deepest oceans.

“Farkle Minkus. Nice to meet you.”

 

Nice to meet you, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to leave it on that note, because I didn't want it to seem like everything was fine and they could get on their lives. I wanted to paint it as sort of a new beginning, where they could get a fresh start. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all liked it!


End file.
